ASRU: Arm Slave Response Unit
by Mr. Inertia
Summary: This takes place several years after the FMP series, in a semidystopian setting. Arm Slave tech has advanced, as old models of AS are becoming more commercial. This story tells the story of the LAPD ASRU unit. Please R&R. 26/11/08 - Chapter 4 up.
1. I : Sortie

"_ASRU-4, you are cleared for drop in thirty seconds…"_

Jethro Tenser sat uneasily in the cockpit seat of his M9, shifting uncomfortably under the restraints of the clamps that had locked over his torso. He never had felt very comfortable in any AS cockpit before… it had just been one of those things that he could never get used to.

The young man looked into his cockpit's main optics-monitor, watching the sprawling cityscape below. He wasn't new to the sight of downtown Los Angeles several hundred feet below him; in fact, he had seen it on many occasions. The city had just become so intricate and networked that it would take ages to try and reach a destination on the ground. It was much more efficient to fly AS's to the problem and drop them directly.

The police, after all, had to be as quick as they could in emergencies.

"_Hey,"_ A new frequency opened up from the M9 parallel to Jethro's, also being ferried to the drop-point by a carrier jet. Its arms were sticking out to the sides as a result of the clamps on its shoulders. _"You ready for our first assignment in these new toys?"_

Jethro brushed a few stray strands of his fire-red hair from his eyes, adjusting the pilot's helmet on his head. "Hardly… these things still have the standard operating systems coded in on them. They'll handle _nothing_ like our standard LAPD M6's."

Some silence on the frequency. Then the other pilot, _"Ah, so what? I bet they still handle the same… basically, at least."_

"You'd better hope so, Andy," Jethro said with a grin. He could already see the target AS's down below. RK-92 Savages, by the looks of it… and painted with wildly flamboyant custom colours. He counted four of them, brandishing assault rifles and standing guard around a three-storey building. "It looks like a bunch of punks trying to hold one of the embassies hostage. Which embassy was it again?"

"_ASRU-4, you are cleared for drop in ten seconds…"_

"_Uh, Greek, I think…" _Andy Packard replied, his police-blue M9 readying itself in the clamps. Jethro began to do the same with his M9, drawing its legs up and steadying himself against the seat for the sensation of falling…

"_ASRU-4, releasing your clamps."_

"Roger," Jethro managed before the metal pincers of the carrier jet let loose and sent his Arm Slave plummeting towards the highway. He could already see the small, ant-sized figures of policemen who had formed roadblocks so the M9's could land safely on the street. "Andy, how're you doing?"

"_Falling faster than you," _Andy said shakily, obviously feeling the retribution of gravity. _"Probably has somethin' to do with this heavy shot-rifle they equipped my M9 with."_

"Maybe," Jethro nodded, his legs and arms pressing tightly against the control-locks they'd been placed in. He was only about fifty feet from the ground by now. "A.I! Respond!"

**Yes? **The mechanical voice of the M9's A.I obliged, waiting for its pilot's command.

"Find altitude and activate Impact Pack at twenty-five feet!"

**Affirmative**

Jethro braced for impact, pressing himself back into his seat. He unfurled the legs of his blue M9, readying them to take the shock of landing. The two large, cylindrical tanks mounted on the calves of the metal giant would hopefully turn aside most of the force.

**Activating Impact Pack** The A.I confirmed, and the M9's legs became enveloped in a streaming white aura. There was a fantastic crashing sound as the AS hit the ground, folding into a kneel to ablate as much impact damage as it could. Jethro's entire world rattled like mad for a moment before the violent motion calmed and he was left to regain his senses while the Impact packs fell from his M9's calves. When he groggily checked the structural screen, he found no damage had been dealt to his mecha.

"That's a relief…" Jethro stood his M9 up and looked down at the four brightly-coloured Savages; they were all reloading. Obviously, they'd been firing at him and Andy as they'd dropped. He called his partner by his codename. "ASRU-5? Come in, ASRU-5."

"Right here," A massive metal hand was placed on the angular shoulder of Jethro's M9. The redhead turned his AS's head to stare straight into an identical visor-piece. At least Andy had also made it down without a hitch.

"Good stuff… let's get this done with," Jethro flipped down the eyepiece of his pilot's helmet before drawing his M9's auto-shotgun. He activated the external microphone on his AS.

"**RK-92 pilots! We'll only say this once: climb out of your AS's and come out with your hands up!"**

"**_It looks like LAPD ain't interested in our terms…" _**One of the Savage pilots responded, also on its external microphone. Jethro wasn't sure which one had spoken, as they had all left their posts on the sides of the building to face the two police AS's. He guessed it was the one painted in red-and-black. **_"We'll blow the embassy sky-high once we're done with these morons. Get 'em!"_**

"_They always have to make a Butch Cassidy scene out of this, don't they?" _Andy sighed, before drawing his M9's shot-rifle up to target the nearest Savage, a blue-and-orange one. **_"A'right, you've had your chances! Now we settle this Old-west style!"_**

Jethro put a leg forward, sending his M9 into a sprint. Its blue-tinted hands worked with the shotgun, loading oversized buckshot slugs into it as it ran before leaping off the highway and landing ten feet below in the Greek Embassy parking lot. He stood no more than five meters from a black-and-white Savage, pointing its Russian-styled assault rifle directly at Jethro.

The shotgun went off as the young pilot pulled the joystick trigger, spraying high-velocity buckshot into the anarchist AS. Most of the shots had penetrated the shell-like machine's stomach and waist, and its legs gave out under it in a torrent of black smoke. Having seen it had fallen on its shredded stomach, Jethro stepped his M9 forward through the smoke and gave a heavy kick to its right hand, knocking the assault rifle from its hand. Just to be sure it wouldn't be able to do anything more he stepped back again and kicked again, aiming for its head. The dish-shaped servo caved in under the powerful blow, rendering the pilot inside without a means of seeing.

"**I'll give you one more chance," **Jethro's voice boomed through the M9's external microphone. **"Exit your AS and come out with your-"**

**Warning: Approaching Heat Source at Seven-o'-Clock **The A.I droned suddenly, giving Jethro enough forewarning to dodge the burst of gunfire that came his way. Whirling his M9 out of the black smoke, he raised his auto-shotgun to bear at the red-and-black Savage he'd taken notice of earlier. But with a shower of sparks and a rattle of gunfire, the strangely-coloured RK-92 deftly shot the firearm from the hands of Jethro's AS.

"**_You thought you were good enough to just waltz in here and take us all out?" _**The pilot laughed scornfully and clicked back the catch on its rifle. **_"Imagine the looks on your superiors' faces when they realize that one of their Arm Slave Response Units were taken out so easily."_**

"**Think again!" **Jethro spat, pushing his M9 into a pouncing run, drawing its one arm behind its waist. With a glint of glass and steel the sleek Arm Slave had pulled its Monomolecular knife from its sheath, its other arm in front of its chest to shield the cockpit. The black-and-red Savage opened fire as its pilot screamed in surprised fury, the bullets slamming into the M9 and cracking its armor plating.

_Zschk!_

The knife plunged into the Savage's carapace, sinking into upper torso. Jethro heard the enemy AS's gun abruptly stop firing; either it had run out of shots or the pilot had been killed. The latter was confirmed when Jethro pulled the knife out and thick, red blood ran down its edge. "Damn it. That wasn't supposed to happen…"

He shoved the broken form of the leader Savage over, and looked over to his right. Andy's M9 was striking a dramatic pose over the smoking hulks of the remaining two Savages while keeping a wary eye on the surrendering pilots. Jethro absently kicked the black-and-white Savage, and its pilot slowly came out… by the looks of it he couldn't have been more than eighteen years-old.

"Good boy," Jethro muttered, sheathing his M9's MM knife and fiddling around with the frequency adjustor on his comm. unit.

"ASRU Command? This is ASRU-4. Threat neutralized. Three hostiles arrested, one hostile eliminated. Minimal damage taken. Requesting cleanup crew ASAP."

"_Roger, ASRU-4. **A**rm **S**lave **R**esponse **U**nit Command, over and out."_

The nineteen year-old policeman pulled off his helmet and opened his M9's hatch. He climbed onto the machine's head and sat there as he watched the policemen-on-standby handcuff the surviving Savage pilot he'd dealt with. "Hasn't been such a great day for you, has it?"


	2. II : Contract

_North Pacific Ocean; 02h00 – 21 July_

The sea was relatively calm in the dark hours of the night. Under a ceiling of dark, grey-purple clouds the inky waters remained placid, undisturbed. Except for a single ship making its way across the Pacific from Japan. The _USS Justiciar_.

It was a mighty ship, one of America's most well-armed supercarriers. Holding over eighty jets of various models, including F/A-18 Hornets and EA-6B Prowlers, it no doubt could unleash vengeful air superiority on any assailants. Its actual armaments were definitely formidable as well; two Mk 29 Sea Sparrow SAM launchers and three RIM-116 Airframe missile launchers were installed to make sure they kept that aforementioned air superiority. As a final touch and reassurance that the ship could dish out more than its share of damage, four Phalanx CIWS guns were mounted on the deck to deter even the craziest of terrorists or soldiers.

However, Higure was neither a soldier nor a terrorist. Mercenaries were only deterred by one thing… a meager paycheck. He grinned to himself in the green-lit cockpit of his AS. This was _no_ meager paycheck he was being offered.

The middle-aged man adjusted his pilot's headpiece with one hand, his head of long, chestnut-brown hair conforming slightly better to the half-helmet. The saltwater his machine was rushing through at 400kph only shuddered the cockpit ever so slightly. Higure raised his eyebrows, somewhat impressed; the submersion shells he had purchased actually worked, for once.

He reached out and fiddled with some dials at his side, before a bleep sounded through the cockpit and a bright-red **SOUND ONLY** signal appeared against the eerie green of the left sidescreen. "Hinaki? How's the shell working?"

There was a brief pause before a voice responded. A teenage girl's voice, soft and shy. _"It's working fine, Higure-sama."_

Higure looked through the right sidescreen of the cockpit, watching the sleek AS rocketing through the water alongside his. Its sapphire-blue head, hands and feet were the only thing really visible; the gunmetal carapace that encased it robbed it of its streamlined, powerful form. Because of the submersion shell, it basically looked like a deformed turtle, but Higure at least took comfort in knowing that both he and his student would be rid of the damn things in less than a minute.

"Hinaki-chan," He began, the _chan_ a term of endearment he had used since Hinaki had been a small child. "You know what to do?"

Another pause. Then, _"I think so, Higure-sama."_

"That's good enough for me, then," The forty year-old man responded, placing his arms and hands in the control-locks. He sighed. _Good enough for me, indeed. This girl could probably do this by herself._

"A.I, set a leap trajectory in fifteen seconds," Higure ordered, before adding, "During the leap, disengage the submersion shell. Make the jump fifty meters in height."

**Yes, Commander Kousei**

He fell silent after that, listening absently to Hinaki giving the same orders to her AS, plus twenty meters jumping height. The mercenary nodded to himself. He knew _exactly_ what she was going to do… and he knew she could do it with her eyes closed.

**Commencing Leap In 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1 – Initiated**

With a water-dulled _thunk_ the two halves of the submersion shell unlatched and fell away, revealing the true form of Higure's Arm Slave. Dark gold in colour, with a design as deadly and agile as a viper. Below a large central optic, four smaller lenses sat in the head of the eight-meter metal giant. It unfolded itself and stepped off the lower half of the shell, springing up with such force that an untrained person would have lost consciousness.

But this kind of thing made Higure come alive. Although his face remained perfectly still, his eyes were filled with a flare of silent exhilaration as he and his AS were rocketed out of the sea in a torrent of water, shooting into the air like a golden bullet. It was just enough to get onto the deck of the carrier, but it was all that he needed. He tensed his body in anticipation as his machine landed on the titanium deck-plating in a crouch, and then unfolded itself to its full frightening height. The US Navy had come into contact with this particular Arm Slave before… with regret, one might speculate.

_Aurum_: Higure Kousei's personal AS, a prototype offshoot of the Codarl and Venom series. The guards on deck, the AS pilots standing watch, the comm. Tower operators… they knew they were in a hell of a lot of trouble.

"**Show's on, gentlemen,"** Higure announced on his external microphone, his expression that of utter solemnity. He paused as a sickening crunch of metal from the aft side of the ship echoed through the air. Out of the sidescreen he could see Hinaki's sapphire-blue Codarl standing over the smoking, crushed form of one of the CIWS emplacements. **"It seems my student's made the first move. My turn, I suppose."**

No sooner had the words been said that Aurum pulled a white cylinder from a holster on its hip, flipped a catch on the side and bowled it amongst the many rows of parked jet fighters. As Higure waited, his AS still standing in its exact same place, he watched the silhouettes of dozens of infantrymen and pilots rushing to the planes. The pilots, surely, were eager to take off… whether to fight or to escape, Higure wasn't sure, but he guessed the latter. The infantry men were probably going to see what the object he'd tossed was. Couldn't they work it out that it was a god-damned _grenade_?

As it detonated, throwing flaming metal and glass and body parts into the air, Higure shook his head. Maybe _now_ they'd have gotten the message.

**Warning: Approaching Heat Sources at 2 'o' Clock**

"Hmph," The mercenary pilot muttered, his legs pistoning up in the control-locks they were held in and slamming them down again. Immediately he felt the motion of Aurum crouching down low like a steel spring, and then the terrific sensation of the machine leaping high into the air like a giant flea. He spun Aurum around in mid-flight, its gold-plated hands drawing glinting twin submachine-guns from its side-holsters. As he focused his eyes on the dark-green figures on the optics monitor the view telescoped in, drawing up a set of targeting points on the cumbersome Arm Slaves. United States M6 units… pathetic. "I really thought America was _done_ with those ridiculous things by now."

He pulled the joystick triggers, deftly guiding his crosshair along the previously set targeting points in a ribboning arc. Aurum's blue optics flared menacingly as it straightened its gun-bearing arms in mid-jump, letting loose a devastating spray of automatic gunfire in its descent. Higure didn't even have to worry about the meager amount of return fire as he landed perfectly on the towerlike bridge of the carrier, watching the trio of M6's first malfunction, and then explode disjointedly. He allowed himself a tiny smile of satisfaction before jamming both of his Arm Slave's black-tinted guns into the roof of the bridge and emptying the clips in a seemingly unending flicker of muzzle-flashes. When the guns sizzled to a halt and the ammo counters stated zero, the roof of the bridge was completely mangled… not to mention those in the bridge itself. Flecks of blood had managed to fly onto the smoking muzzles of the submachine guns.

_That takes care of the captain and the main crew… and the runway is already in flames… _Higure thought to himself as he slowly swept Aurum's head to scan across the deck of the _Justiciar_. When he heard a resounding click to his left, however, the middle-aged man made a sharp turn in the direction of the noise, narrowing his eyes at the sight. One of the yet-unharmed Phalanx CIWS emplacements had managed to swivel in on his position. Even now he was watching the barrels slowly begin to spin to a start. "…And then there's the matter of that."

Even Higure's near-inhuman reflexes could do nothing to leap out of the way of the hail of bullets that came speeding his way… but he had no intention of dying on this infernal block of steel. His eyes widened slightly as his instinct of survival kicked in, raw and furious and unwilling to give up. As if magic that powerful instinct seemed to manifest itself physically, forming a rippling blue dome around the front of Aurum, turning the bullets aside as if they were paper pellets. He began to walk the gold mecha slowly towards the large gun, balling its right hand into a fist. A long, double-edged blade sprang out from under its forearm plating from the action, as Higure forced Aurum from a walk into a jog and a jog into a flatout charge, all the while forcing shots aside with the angel-blue barrier that protected him and his precious machine.

"Damn…" Were the only words from the man's lips as he drew his legs up, pulling Aurum into a feet-first slide. As it skidded past the Phalanx turret the dark-gold AS stuck out its blade-bearing arm, scything straight through the small, unprotected wedge at the CIWS' base. As Aurum spun a-hundred-and-eighty degrees in its slide and jumped to its feet, the turret first groaned and then snapped off its base altogether. Aurum, now facing the turret which rolled towards it like a deformed beach ball, thrust one arm out to stop it dead in its tracks. The long, silver wristblade on its other arm raised slowly, aiming at the gunners' seats inside the structure.

"**How does it feel when the tables are turned, gentlemen?" **Higure asked on his external microphone, hardly expecting an answer. Moments later the monomolecular wristblade flashed down and up half a dozen times, becoming more red-stained with each stab until all inside the broken turret had no more blood to splatter. **"Normally I'd make it quicker, but you forced me to use that infernal device."**

He pulled one arm back, hoisting the destroyed turret into one of Aurum's gold-plated hands. With one thrust of the joysticks Higure made his fearsome AS pitch the metal wreck like a giant shot-put, over the edge and down into the waters below. He deliberately waited to hear the resounding splash before turning his Arm Slave to survey the scene.

The runway was wrecked, making it impossible for what jets that remained to take off. The bridge and communication station were mangled lumps of blood, metal and flesh… utterly unusable. He had taken care of one CIWS turret… and it seemed that Hinaki had made short work of the other two. Even now she was at it, he observed; the last two deployed M6's were falling fast and hard to her Codarl's hands. Higure watched with ceaseless fascination as she handled her AS like a masterwork music instrument, dodging and sliding and striking true with every thrust and slash of the monomolecular katana it held tight in both sapphire-blue hands. She _never_ let her guard down.

Aurum took a few paces, stepping into a more centered part of the deck as Hinaki's Codarl leapt high into the air, escaping the two fallen Arm Slaves' explosions before landing neatly in front of the dark-gold mecha and standing gracefully.

"**Amazing work,"** Higure said softly on his external microphone, his voice completely different. Instead of the hard, serious tone it was during the fight, he had adopted a warmer, kinder voice when speaking to his young student. **"Have you remembered to set the charges, Hinaki-chan?"**

"**_Yes, Higure-sama,"_** Hinaki's soft, sweet voice came in reply, without hesitation. **_"Are… you alright, Higure-sama?"_**

"**Uh…" **Higure wasn't really alright at all. He'd been forced to _it_, for the first time in years _and for such a trivial damn matter_. **"I'm fine. We need to head for Okinawa, right away. A distress call must have been sent out, and the charges are ticking…"**

He turned his attention back to the edge of the ship, or more importantly, jumping over that edge. With a flick of a switch Aurum's underwater hydraulics fired up, hissing softly as they pushed against air and not the water they were intended for. He drew his legs up in the control-locks, crouching the fearsome AS down before making a standing vault ten meters across, before diving with absolute perfection of form into the midnight-blue waves. Seconds later a second splash echoed behind him. He set Aurum on autopilot, letting it make its way through the waters.

"_Higure-sama?"_ Hinaki began hesitantly, this time on the internal comm. unit as they sailed under waves.

"Yes, Hinaki-chan?"

"_I was watching the news the other day…" _Her voice was still somewhat hesitant, as if she was about to give some bad news. Higure frowned in concern. _"And… I saw Gatsu-kun. He's a Los Angeles AS pilot, now."_

Higure raised his eyebrows. Now _that _was interesting, indeed. The young boy with the fire-red hair and piercing green eyes who he'd trained those many years ago. He still wished that he'd monitored his behavior more thoroughly… if he had, then the boy would still have been his student today. Such wasted potential… damn MITHRIL.

"_Komen-nasai, Higure-sama," _Hinaki responded, breaking the silence. _"I should have told you earlier."_

"No, I understand, Hinaki-chan," Higure nodded. They were no more than four-hundred meters from the shoreline, by now. "We were both busy with preparations. I'm glad that you told me."

Even over a sound-only communications line, with a space of about ten meters between his AS and hers, Higure could feel the glowing aura of gratitude that Hinaki radiated. The girl was the perfect student; she thrived on his acceptance of her, and it could make her move mountains if asked to.

As the two sleek Arm Slaves reached the shallows they swung their legs through the midnight-blue waters to touch the submersed sand and stood up, like glinting behemoths in the dark. Thankfully, the _Justiciar_ had been traveling along an uninhabited part of the coastline.

"You know, Hinaki-chan…" Higure said, his handsome face bearing a thin smile. Aurum had stopped, staring its five lenses back towards the sea, as the horizon was lined red by a shuddering fireball. The charges had worked well.

"_Yes, Higure-sama?"_ Hinaki responded, ever-obedient.

"…I think we need to arrange a rendezvous with Gatsu-kun sometime."


	3. III: Recall

_Los Angeles Police Department; 09h12 – 24 July_

"…_And in other news, a terrorist hostage-crisis at the Los Angeles Greek Embassy was successfully halted and thwarted by the LAPD…"_

"Hey! HEY!" Andy's voice echoed along the officers' lounge, as he leapt onto the seating of one of the already-worn couches. His dirty-blonde fringe shimmered and danced about his forehead as the man's shortish, energetic form beckoned every other living soul in the room with waving arms. A wide, strange grin was plastered on his face, an ambiguous expression that caused several other officers to raise their eyebrows. "Come on, people! It's showing on the news! Right now! With us in it!"

Jethro was caught by a fluke reflection-glare off Andy's badly chromed wristwatch, causing him to choke on the coffee he was sipping for a moment. Working with someone like Andy was testing, even for someone like Jethro who generally remained very far from losing his temper. Wiping a smear of black coffee off his upper lip, the young ASRU pilot walked casually over to the couch along with six or seven other interested parties, standing behind and leaning forward onto the backrest as he turned his eyes to the television.

"A'right, here we go," Andy whispered, in the tones of an excited child about to open Christmas presents. He slid back into a sitting position, almost doubling over with the amount that he leaned forward towards the TV.

The first few clips showed the initial stages of the incident, which Jethro and Andy had only been briefed about abstractly before they'd been sent out. Looking upon the foursome of Savages surrounding the building once more, Jethro couldn't help but see the fundamental flaws in the terrorists' planning. They had no air-support, no infantry to actually securely keep the hostages compliant… just four fools with black-market Arm Slaves and basic knowledge of their workings.

They weren't terrorists… just Desperadoes.

"That's what you call a threat, Andy?" asked Xyn with a smirk, flicking the back of his head with one finger. Another ASRU operative and a Greek, she was considered one of the most skilled pilots in the division. It was no wonder; for some reason the Greek Special Operations branch was world-renowned for the ability of their pilots and their advanced technology.

"Quiet, you!" Andy protested, but with a grin on his face at the same time. He swiped at her extended, fingerless glove-clad hand and missed as she deftly retracted it. "You'd be singing a different tune if you were sent out there!"

"Huh, really? If you two clowns-" pushing back a few loose strands of her platinum-blonde hair, Xyn shot a mock-grudging glance at Jethro. He was too absorbed in the newscast to notice the joking gesture. "-hadn't been signed on as a two-man fixed roster, I'd have been out there for sure. It's my country's embassy and everything…"

The image on the screen cut to a panning-across shot of the sky, occupied by the police broad-winged carrier jets and their AS payloads. The camera focused in on Andy's shot-rifle bearing M9, but not long enough for him to whoop in boisterous approval before it darted over to centre on Jethro's police-blue machine. Somewhat deflated, Andy sat back and crossed his arms sullenly.

"_Airdropped AS's owned by the LAPD's special Arm Slave Response bureau arrived on-scene and proceeded to disable the terrorists' AS's and place them in police custody…"_

The screen was suddenly ablaze with fast-moving metal giants and oversized gunfire, as Andy and Jethro carved a path of police-justice into the wildly-coloured Savages. Several hushed 'ooh', 'aah' and 'wow' remarks were made around the couch as the battle unfurled on TV screens across the country.

"See that? _See that_?" Andy demanded triumphantly, pointing at the screen as it showed his M9 sliding between two of the RK-92's and blasting one's leg off with its oversized shot-rifle. Xyn clapped a few sarcastic claps, which promptly shut Andy up again and provoked a general chuckle along the small congregation of viewers. The shortish pilot sat back again, giving an ineffectual evil-eye to those around him. "I bet the response would be different if _Jethro's_ damn footage was showing."

His words were punctuated as the next sequence played, showing Jethro's M9 ram into a black-and-red Savage. Or at least, it seemed that it had rammed into the Savage. Jethro spotted the glint of the Monomolecular knife flashing into the underside of the rotund enemy AS's torso… with the sudden surprised glance from Xyn he noticed out of the corner of his eye, he was sure she'd noticed it, too. Shivers crept down his spine for an instant, almost making him shy away from the momentary look Xyn had given him; he was in control a second later though, despite the fact that he wasn't eager to stay and watch the rest of the newscast.

"…Excuse me, please," The young man scratched his fire-red head of hair uncertainly, before turning on his heel and making towards the door. Only one or two others raised their heads quizzically at his brisk pace and sudden decision to leave… but he also felt a pursuing presence behind him as he stepped out into the grey-white corridor, taking a right-turn.

He only walked ten steps before he stopped again, glancing over his shoulder and catching a glance of platinum-blonde hair a few meters behind. For a while, they stood in silence.

Finally, Xyn cleared her throat. "Force of habit, was it…?"

"That wasn't why I did it. I didn't intend to kill the pilot," Jethro responded levelly. He didn't turn to face her. "It was an accident, that's all."

"Or perhaps a physical form of a Freudian Slip…" The girl probed, beginning to walk forward. Jethro's gloved hands clenched. "You know, when you mistakenly say what you're really thinking instead of your prepared polite statement. Maybe you planned to puncture the central actuator _under_ the cockpit but instead you did what you really wanted…"

This time, Jethro turned. His usually soft eyes were now like hardened emeralds. Xyn seemed unaffected. "You like to jump to conclusions, don't you, Lt. Seratos? What makes you think that you know how my mind works?"

"We were both soldiers, Jethro," Xyn sighed, crossing her arms. "I think I know at least a bit of what a trained killer's brain is taught to do and feel."

"You…" Jethro faltered for a moment, uncertain if he wanted to say what had crossed his mind. A moment later, he decided it was necessary. "You have no idea what a real soldier _is_. This damn Cold War allowed you to get away with just wearing nice uniforms and patrolling your country borders, but you've never seen the actual _war_ side of it, have you?"

"Y'know, I find it hilarious…" Xyn countered in an equally level, rather chilling tone. "That you think you can arrive at any demeaning theory for national troops, but you feel it takes some special insight to talk accurately about whatever you used to be part of."

"Well, at least you're right about that," The redhead replied dismissively, before stalking off down the corridor again. He could almost feel Xyn's amber eyes watching him impassively as the distance between them increased. With every step further from her, though, the feeling got to him more and more, like a spreading itch; when he could finally not take it any longer he half-turned back towards her, throwing his arms up questioningly. "What?"

"Just a question…" The girl said slowly, as if she were still considering it. She shrugged her long, plaited ponytail off her shoulder absently as she seemed to wonder.

"Make it quick."

"Okay, then, I'll put it like this;" Although her face was impassive, her eyes seemed to smile wryly. Jethro gritted his teeth. "They often say or just speculate that you're an ex-MITHRIL operative."

"That's not a question."

"Alright, but this is," Xyn pointed to the door of the officers' lounge. "I was watching that news-article, and I was thinking… why on Earth would anyone think that you were once a pilot for MITHRIL?"

Jethro sighed. _Now _she was being petty. "What, my performance didn't seem good enough? I'm not meeting some obscure standard of yours?"

"No, not at all. That's not what I'm talking about," The look in Xyn's eyes now was disconcerting, as if she knew something compromising. "It's just that if you were MITHRIL, you would've made an overhead thrust into the torso with your monomolecular cutter, like those guys are trained to do."

The red-haired pilot's breath caught in his throat. She wasn't finished yet, and the thought of what she might say next was unnerving in the least.

"…Instead, you stabbed in an underhand motion, like Russian Savage pilots. Like _specialist AMALGAM pilots_."

He stood there, staring dumbfoundedly at her for several moments. How the hell did she know about MITHRIL's training procedures? No, wait, how did she know about AMALGAM at all, let alone their _combat styles_? He could pass all of her claims off as coincidence, but he could see she wasn't wondering anymore. She was different from the average ex-military pilot… and she _knew_ all these damn things, to boot.

"I- I don't know," Jethro stammered lowly, before turning and making off down the passageway as fast as he could walk. At every step, it took all his concentration and willpower to prevent himself from losing his cool and running.

Now, three people in the world knew what he really had been. And two of them were most likely dead, long ago…

…

_The boy's breaths are heavy, his face glistening with sweat in the ruddy light of the AS cockpit. As the radio message crackles in on his comm. set, his edginess turns to fear as he forces his limbs further into the adult-sized control braces, desperate to keep control. His emerald-green eyes are wide with anxiety as they stare fixedly at the screen before him._

_The Ukrainian oil-rig that he and his Arm Slave are situated within is ablaze with gunfire, explosions and noise. All around, the battle rages in every form; infantry rushing down below, AS's and tanks engaging one another, helicopters circling mercilessly in the midnight sky. Most of it is happening fifty meters away, from where the boy and his… well, the only two important to him… have just hastily rushed from. _

_He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, his fire-red hair messily falling about his face as he holds his dusk-grey machine in a low crouch, behind a pair of wide oil silos. The rounded, obscure form of the KGB-class RK-92 he sits in deftly reloads its Kalashnikov-68 rifle, its ruby-red optics burning like coals in the darkness._

"Gatsu-kun!"_ The strong, rich voice of the boy's master crackles through the comm. headset slung hastily about his ears. His heart is clutched by feelings of reassurance, concern and fanatical devotion all at once, throwing his alertness off slightly. It's the reason that he doesn't hear the slow, faint scrape on the other side of the crimson silos. _"Hinaki's with me. We're heading out of the auxiliary building- we'll go along strut D and to the secondary warehouse, alright?"

_The boy manages a breathless "Hai," sweeping the dark Savage's dishlike head to the side. The particular strut, he notices, runs over and along the top of the oil silos he's using as cover. Anything that tries to get in Hinaki-chan and Higure-sama's way will meet swift and violent interception._

_He watches, white-knuckled hands gripping the joysticks fiercely as the door from the Auxiliary warehouse to his right bursts open. His hands twitch on the controls, the hijacked Savage immediately pulling the Kalashnikov to bear at the shadowed figures that rush out. The screen flashes, the crosshairs overlap… but it's just Hinaki and Higure. He sighs in relief._

_At that moment, however, the boy and his AS are jolted forward by a slamming impact from behind. Bright-red lights flash around the small compartment, indicating an armour breach in the Savage's lower back as he forces it up and whirls it around. A sleek, grey Arm Slave stands half-behind the massive silo, holding a smoking, shotgun-like firearm in its titanium grip. His mind races, and he knows that this can't happen now, not with Hinaki and Higure…_

"Gatsu-kun, calm down,"_ Hinaki's soft voice filters through the comm., as if she's read his mind. Her words like a rush of cool wind, removing the boy's over-anxiety instantly. _"You've done this before. You know what to do."

"_I understand," He grates, as another part of him takes over. The cold, violent adult, planted and bred to perfection by Higure steers his body, now. It has about as much humanity as a gunshot, but the boy still embraces it like an extension of his body._

_The light-grey Arm Slave brings the shotgun-muzzle to bear again, but the boy is ready. His arms and legs jerk to the side in the control braces, throwing his dusk-grey machine into a sideways roll. The enemy AS fires the shotgun with a resounding clap of oversized buckshot, but the murderous pellets only tear up the concrete that the Savage had been standing on. The boy keeps his head as his world spins upside down, before righting itself as his Savage lands in a crouch, its Kalashnikov poised menacingly._

"Gatsu-kun…" _Higure says suddenly. He sounds dumbfounded, before launching into a hasty explanation. _"Pull back! You're fighting an M9 model, MITHRIL's new prototype. Hinaki and I will find another way around."

"_Go forward now, Higure-sama… I'll hold it off," The boy says as if in a daze, his concentration set towards the task at hand. The crosshair points stream from the x- and y-axes of the monitor, lining up and targeting the enemy Arm Slave's chest. He pulls on the joystick trigger, and his rotund AS lets loose with a spray of flashing AK fire with a heavy rattle. He is almost sure he has hit the M9…so sure that he lets his guard down slightly and fires the remainder of the clip. Only to find out that this supposed enemy 'prototype' is inhumanly fast._

_The light-grey, sleek AS throws itself forward, weaving in and out of the paths of the Kalashnikov burst as it primes its shotgun with an icy _k-chkk_. The boy does not lose his nerve, but instead stands his Savage and pulls the magazine-catch for the Kalashnikov, letting the empty clip begin to fall. Now only ten or so meters apart, the M9 pulls up its glinting weapon with lethal steadiness, the depths of the weapon's barrel like an abyss. Gatsu calmly draws back one leg in the control brace, and kicks out heavily. The falling cartridge is caught square-on by the Savage's foot, and flies up again in a spinning arc, smashing into the enemy AS's rounded head-plating. Now within arms-reach, the light-grey machine's head jolts up with a whine of buckling hydraulics…_

…_But not before firing._

_Gatsu's world fragments for a moment, as the bottom of the cockpit-hatch seemingly tears itself open with a scream of breaking steel and gunfire-staccato. His ears are filled with unholy echoes of the gunshot, his vision is a sea of virulent red as he struggles with his grip on the controls, desperately trying to detach his mind from his faltering senses. He feels several sharp pains in his legs and stomach, and can feel his entire body begin to stiffen. He feels himself slipping out of consciousness, his mental awareness dulling and ebbing…_

"_NO!"_

_Gatsu's eyes bolt open, ablaze with feral rage as he forces himself up and thrusts one arm forward in its brace. The shrapnel imbedded into his lower body is of no concern to him, as the Savage's thin arm shoots over the shoulder of the M9, using its other arm to pull in the Arm Slave. The enemy pilot is obviously shocked, as Gatsu can see no immediate reaction from the sudden counterattack as his rounded machine's hand grips tight on the Monomolecular knife sheathed on the enemy machine's shoulder-rack. The blade slides out like lethal silk, before it flashes down in the Savage's grip, aimed to pierce the M9's cockpit._

_Once, twice- the monomolecular blade crunches down into the body of the enemy Arm Slave, but fails to hit the cockpit. Instead, the knife carves into its armored shoulder with the first stroke, and pierces a joint-section between the chest and arm of the machine, mangling some major hydraulics and spattering silvery-black fluid across both metal giants. Gatsu's world shimmers and blurs around him again, as the itchy feel of the RK-92 headset dulls and his upper body numbs. The loss of feeling is punctuated by a sudden, sharp elbowing from the light-grey AS, sending his Savage sprawling back. In the sudden rush of motion, however, Gatsu notices the limpness of the opponent AS's stabbed arm… at least he's managed to damage it to some extent._

"_Damn it…" The boy rasps, ignoring the pinching, shock-dulled pain in his legs as he moves them in the control-braces. The RK-92's dusk-grey body falls into a kneeling crouch, managing to keep a grip on the M9's one arm in the tumult of scraping metal and whirring mechanical limbs. With a two-handed tug sudden and heavy enough to damage the arm-sockets of the Savage, it heaves its sleek-formed opponent over its shoulder in an improvised throw; with a resounding crash the light-grey M9 lands heavily on its back. Inside the cockpit, Gatsu fights to keep his young body from going completely numb, as another part of him focuses desperately on killing his adversary._

_Unfortunately, the sudden spin, whiplash and impact of having one's AS thrown over another has apparently not fazed the M9 pilot too much. The dented, cracked, dirt-speckled machine moves as soon as the greatest of the throw's momentum has passed, turning over on its side to level its shotgun-muzzle one-handed at the Savage. The cracked visor-plate glints with the fragmented red reflection of the Savage's optics… Gatsu focuses his emerald eyes on it, during that one instant in which he realizes that he cannot win._

_At point-blank this time, it's no wonder that the pellets tear through the mechanized kneecap of the Savage, severing the leg and sending the rotund AS toppling once and for all. Gatsu feels the urge to cry out in surprise as the red warning-lights flash all around him again, but he only manages a listless exhalation, falling back in the adult-proportioned cockpit seat as the sensation of falling tingles at the edge of his senses. "I… lost. I'm sorry… Higure-sama…"_

_He might have said Hinaki's name after, but the heady flow of unconsciousness carries him away too quickly…_

………

_He awakes with smothering haziness and painful clarity simultaneously, his eyelids flickering open before he's even fully aware again. His vision is intermittently clear and blurry, focusing in and fuzzing out every few moments as if the night sky he stares up at is breathing, or pulsating. He can feel what he imagines to be stretcher under him… and the straps connected to it that bind his body down. Apparently, whoever's custody he's currently in don't trust him very much… despite his shrapnel-torn lower body and general inability to run away at the moment._

"_W… …take him to… …ere…"_

"_But wh… …do? …too…"_

_Gatsu lets his head loll to one side, trying to get a glimpse of who is speaking. Two men, one of around fifteen years and the other somewhere in his fifties stand a few meters away, talking in curt military tones to each other. Incidentally, both the kneeling frame of the inactive M9 and the trashed remains of his Savage outline them in the background. Gatsu takes his concentration off his eyes and focuses on hearing their conversation, closing his eyes to filter the world out better._

"_Tell me, sergeant, how did he perform in combat?" The older man. He speaks Japanese with a slight Russian accent. "This boy can't be more than ten years old."_

"_Given the hardware he was using, sir, it was nothing less than exceptional," The younger replies. It's strange, that his Japanese is perfectly fluent and in a native accent; his skin tone is deeply tanned, like an Arab. "I think I would have taken more than just light damage, if I'd been using an M6."_

"_If this one matches the database ID, sergeant, I think we're in luck. This boy could be one of Kousei's apprentices. Both are children, and they've already been attributed to the deaths of several of our men in various situations. In and out of an AS."_

_There are a few moments of silence. Gatsu opens his eyes a fraction, his vision blurry again. Still, he can see the outlines of the two. The young man is looking off towards the RK-92's wreckage, seemingly hesitant._

"_Is this our plan, then, sir? Find every child like… this, and cultivate them into killing machines?"_

"_They're already killing machines, sergeant. At the very least we can give them some of their humanity back by giving them a real cause to fight for. Didn't I do the same for you?"_

_Gatsu blinks his eyes fully open as his sight improves enough to see their faces. Only then, does he see the teenager's eyes upon him, deep brown and thoroughly piercing in the orange light of the fires all around. The small X-shaped scar on his one cheek becomes apparent as well, which Gatsu focuses his vision on if only to escape the fifteen-year-old's gaze._

"_Yes, sir," He finally mutters, before turning to walk away. "Permission to leave, sir? I need to give the technicians the report on the M9's handling…"_

"_Of course. Dismissed," The aging man puts a hand on his grey-bearded chin, before glancing in the teenager's direction again. "Take care, Sousuke…" _

"Christ…"

Jethro gazed up at the ceiling with bleary eyes, his own ragged breaths sporadically breaking the silence of the near-empty precinct dorm. The moonlight from the blind-covered window fell on his body in glaring silver strips, illuminating the contours of his form under the rough blanket.

He sat up, immediately glancing down at his legs and stomach… no, they were fine. No shrapnel, no blood, no torn clothing. As if distrustful of his senses, he ran a hand down one leg to make doubly sure. Nothing wrong. Not anymore.

It had been a long time since the dream had returned… at least, in such startling clarity. For a while, Jethro thought he had shaken it, finally rid himself of the memory plaguing his sleep. The old recurring-nightmare cliché had latched onto him for so many years, and he realized why it had _become_ a cliché in the first place. It made sleeping, usually the best escape from reality, the very thing that threw one back to the worst moments of one's reality.

"_Macbeth doth murder Sleep…_" The young pilot quoted, hanging his head drowsily as he sat there. It was one of the many sayings Higure-sama used to derisively quote, during the appropriate bad situation. Now, Jethro could find no other words to describe what he felt. That teenager, who had undoubtedly been the M9 pilot… he effectively killed Jethro's world on that night, despite the fact that MITHRIL had given him a new beginning afterwards. They spoke about it as if it were a favor, too… like hell it was. It was petty compensation, and nothing more.

And despite the physical healing, the education, the training and general acceptance by the organization, they still couldn't stop the nightmares. They couldn't give him peaceful sleep back, not in a million years. He could only find some happiness in joining the police, far away from the real war and among the closest to normal people he had experienced. He was content, but it still didn't change what had happened.

On this particular night, though, the dream had revealed something he'd never remembered prior, a single word, spoken by the older man. The teenage pilot's name… perhaps, a helpful clue in finding him one day, whoever he really was. Jethro's eyes narrowed as the syllables welled up in his throat, until he couldn't help but say it in a low, angered whisper.

"…Sousuke…"


	4. IV: Reconnection

_Unknown Warehouse, Los Angeles; 00h51 – 1 August_

Swiftly, sweepingly, the grimy warehouse-door was flung open. As the grey-flecked pine tapped gently against the parallel, rundown wall, Higure stepped in.

He looked ahead as he entered, locking gazes with the muscle-bound door guard through his streamlined glasses. Apparently, the dexterity with which Higure handled the door gave the hoodie-attired figure a moment's pause… or perhaps it was his general appearance. He'd decided, with the intent to straddle comfort and sensibility, to dress in a beige casual-suit, foregoing a tie (he hated the things, really) and leaving the top button of his stark-white shirt undone. His hair, as usual outside of an AS, was drawn back in a clasped, sleek chestnut-brown ponytail, leaving his graceful features unobscured, save for a lock or two at his temples. He hardly looked as if he should be walking into an allegedly-abandoned warehouse in the dead of night and conversing with thugs. He looked more like the kind one might find dining in a fine hotel restaurant…

…Or making soul-pacts with hapless victims. Yet, Higure strode in at a leisurely pace, barely glancing about as he moved into the warehouse's main chamber. The ceiling sat at least three floors up. The guarded door, only five paces away, most likely led at least three floors down.

"Hey! Who the hell are you?" The guard challenged, speaking in the tiresome bass-whine of a wannabe White-Gangsta. Higure stopped for a moment, reaching up idly and scratching his clean-shaven chin. His finely-slanted eyes followed the shadowy slash of a strap across the punk's shoulder, making out the glint of the submachine-gun that was attached to it, and gripped in the man's rough hands. In the half-light, it seemed that the barrel was still down, the gun angled to the floor for _some_ reason. Safety, maybe, if the gun went off by some ridiculous fumbling? Higure could never understand how such a thing was even possible.

During that moment in which Higure stood still, surveying the guard, Hinaki stepped out beside him. His willing, loyal shadow. She moved forward, pace quickening, a faultless grace in her step and the soft sweep of her raven-black, shoulder-length hair. Superficially, she seemed fairly harmless; young, slender, attired in casual streetwear. Her body-language was completely nontransmissive, her expression as innocent as the next eighteen year-old girl's. Shrugging, Higure followed after the girl, resuming his relaxed lope, artistic hands sliding into tailored pockets. Without a word, he listened to the ensuing exchange.

"Put the gun away. We have a meeting with your boss." Hinaki's voice, soft and clear in British-accented English. Higure closed his eyes, smiling slightly as he kept walking.

"Yeah, like f--- you do. Any closer and-"

The second sentence was punctuated by the muffled click of the gun being primed, catch sliding back between the punk's fingers. Then, a ruffle of cloth underlined both the pull of the trigger and the simultaneous _tunk_ of Hinaki's hand sweeping into the gun, knocking it off-center. The fairly unpleasant staccato of a badly-maintained SMG diring filled the stale air, the last of the five or six missed shots punctuated by a loud, sinewy crack. Probably an elbow-joint, by the sounds of it.

Higure opened his eyes in time to see Hinaki's knife leave its sheath, concealed on the back of her dark jeans under her jacket. The blade, a refurbished Fairbairn-Sykes combat knife, glinted along its double-edges in the pale moonlight that shone through the warehouse skylight, the silver sheen trailing behind its motion. Gripping it blade downward, Hinaki held the faltering, stunned thug by his jacket with her free hand as she brought the SAS knife up and then down at a shallow angle. Before the man could even begin to scream at the agony that erupted up his arm, carbon-steel found its way sidelong into his throat, just below the jawline; with a subtle twist, the knife tore through his larynx, silencing him permanently.

Hinaki gave a short tug at the man's jacket to dislodge most of her weapon and then let go, the punk's skewered throat sliding away from the unmoving blade as he slumped to the dust-smeared concrete. No spray, no immense mess. Just a neat coating of crimson across the gleaming steel, and a tiny well of blood that had accumulated between the handguard and Hinaki's little finger.

As she crouched down, lifting the dying, weakly-gasping guard's one sleeve up to clean the blood off, Higure approached the door. Fingers around the handle, he half-turned back to his apprentice, shoes scuffing the floor slightly as he did so. There was always something fascinating in the girl's movements.

"You're alright, Hinaki_-chan_?" He asked, also in English. The same smoothness carried in his tone as it did in any other language he spoke.

"Yes, Higure_-sama_," Her blue-violet eyes followed the curve of the knife as she held it up for inspection, before sheathing it with one motion. She stood, her soft, measured footsteps drowning out the thug's dying breath.

"Good," The forty year-old mercenary nodded curtly, twisting the door-handle. Beyond the worn doorway, a kind of sickly darkness engulfed the corridors within. Metal rail-steps, beside the door, led down to at least one basement level. Approaching footfalls clanged on the steps of a lower floor. "Let's go."

The first encounter set the pace for the next two minutes, as the two submerged themselves in the shadows and headed down the stairs. The rest of the watchmen, similar in outfit and equipment to the one at the door, had most likely heard the gunfire outside. The moment he and she stepped from the stairway and onto the first basement level, three guns at different positions and from various directions, opened fire around them.

The users of the guns did not last long, nor did the cluster of ruffians that charged out of a side-room, spraying automatic fire as they spilled into the corridor. Although one could barely see in cross-wired flicker of the ceiling lighting, the glint of Hinaki's Fairbairn-Sykes and the shine on the blood-spatters were fairly clear between the disjointed, yellow bursts of light from the barrels of the thugs' firearms and the flickering muzzle-flash of Higure's silenced handgun, stashed informally in his inner jacket pocket until now.

As the gun-smoke swirled and rose, revealing the dozen-odd dark, crumpled forms in the corridor, Higure paced over to one, where he'd let one of his pistol's magazines drop. Kneeling fluidly, carefully picking the cartridge up, the side of his hand brushed against what seemed like one of the thugs' guns. Without squinting, the mercenary examined the weapon's form closer.

"…_That's not an SMG_," He mused in Japanese, a soft mutter in the dark. Hinaki's silhouette, several meters further on, straightened to a stand. He glanced up to her. "_I know I'm stating the obvious here, but these things have the AK look about them_."

They _did_ look like AK-type assault rifles, but to say they were actually Kalashnikovs would be a bit misinformed. He reached out, index-finger tracing a line across the chamber-catch and the rivets in its main housing. Then he stood with a dismissive shrug, eyes on the only unopened door in the passageway.

"_Custom-blueprint Type 81's, maybe,_" He mused, checking the clip of his pistol without hurry. Four rounds remaining. Hinaki nodded, picking her way amongst the bodies and still-warm 5.56 shells to the closed door. Higure followed, kicking an obstructing corpse aside as he went. "_Well, Type 81 bodywork at least. Their rates-of-fire were a little high for knockoffs of a fifty year-old Russian gun._"

The handle of the worse-for-wear door, as he'd expected, refused to turn. Locked. Higure glanced to Hinaki, who was already retrieving a set of lockpicks from her pocket. He nodded slightly, and took a step back for her to reach the lock.

"_This wonderful old friend of mine had better be down here."_

Inside that particular room, Alexei Karkarov crossed his arms and smiled.

The man that sat across the table wasn't very difficult to read. Sitting there, dressed in some tiresomely cheap business suit amongst his three-man entourage of tank-topped bodyguards, the man thought he was giving off an air of hybrid corporate/street gang calm. He probably also thought he was intimidating. Karkarov would have laughed, but the barrel of the .45 that was pressing an interesting new skin-pattern against his bald head was curbing his enthusiasm somewhat.

Still, Karkarov smiled. The gang-boss took this seriously, somehow, and bolted up out of his seat. The next moment, he leaned forward across the lamplit stretch of table, his own pistol now wavering a few inches in front of Karkarov's face. The man's eyes were wide with fury, but a kind of fury spawned from fear that ran down to the core of one's soul.

"You're gonna tell me just what the f--- is going on out there," The gang-boss rasped. Karkarov looked from the .38 he held to the man's scarred features, and back to the undersized revolver.

"It's not particularly intimidating to have a second gun thrust in my face," The Russian leaned back in his seat, ignoring the increasing pressure of the SOCOM on the back of his head. He squinted, for a moment, as a soft rattle emanated from the door. "You don't clean out the trigger-mechanism on this one, do you?"

The hammer of the .38 clicked back. Karkarov saw the man's thumb tremble slightly. He was fairly good at reading emotions; he had to be, to be an arms-dealer. "Karkarov, I'm about two second from putting a cap through your goddamn-"

"Okay, alright, fine," Karkarov sighed, raising his hands slightly. "Truth is, I haven't got a clue who's out there."

"Bullshit!"

"Think for a second. I'm a fixer. I don't _have _bodyguards," Karkarov glanced back, at the fourth heavy, who was holding the .45 to his head. "You mind pressing a little softer with that? Anyway, like I said, I came alone, and I'm sure as hell not behind whatever's happening out there…"

Stagnant silence. The gang-boss seemed to be seriously considering whether or not to shoot him. Karkarov cleared his throat. "But by the sounds of it, these people are not everyday Los Angeles street-punks. The rifle-fire stopped two minutes ago, which means that all your boys went down within a minute."

He checked his watch, a battered old Rolex imitation. "Yeah, about a minute. Whoever's out there is looking for me, probably."

"How does this stop me from blowing your damn head off?" Karkarov could now hear creeping desperation in his voice.

"If they want me, and I'm dead, those people aren't going to be very happy with you," Karkarov shrugged. "They'll probably let you all go, if you try to look as unthreatening as you can, and put your guns-"

_Clickclickclick-CLACK._

The door swung open. Gun still in Karkarov's face, leaning across the table, the gang-boss was the first to go down. Karkarov watched the muzzle-flash without watching the shooter, recognizing the handgun as a customized CZ75. One he'd built for someone a long time ago. Forehead exploding with the force of the shot, the gang-boss toppled over, knocking against the table before he hit the floor. The one behind him went down next, .45 barrel scraping along the back of Karkarov's head as the broad-shouldered thug crumpled from the force of the rounds.

A second figure blurred into the room. Karkarov, still seated casually, caught glimpses of onyx-black hair, a female form, the glint of a military-grade knife. Before the remaining three bodyguards could even draw their guns, they fell, red trailing from several areas on their bodies as the girl darted around them, knife-hand too fast to keep track of.

The jacketed figure, still standing in the doorway, seemed to inspect his silenced handgun, sliding the clip out. When he spoke, old memories stirred n Karkarov's mind. "I hope you still stock twelve-mil rounds, friend… I think I've just run out."

"Higure, you old bastard!" Karkarov laughed, turning in his seat to fully face the ponytailed man. When he finally replaced his gun inside his jacket and stepped into the room, Karkarov stood and approached, clasping hands with him. "Glad to see you're still alive!"

Higure's face was purposefully blank, as Karkarov had always known him, but his eyes spoke friendliness. "Barely, at least. How's your retirement in the Land of the Free been, Alexei?"

"Tedious, I have to admit. Just fledgling gangs wanting the cheapest guns I can find. I just dealt a shipment of factory-fresh Korean rifles, for these ones…" Karkarov raised a hand to indicate the dead (or nearly so) men bleeding out around them. As he glanced to the side, he took notice of the girl who now stood unassumingly on the other side of the room, eyes respectfully downcast. "…This your little girl, Higure? Geeze, she's become a fine young lady…"

The girl looked up for a second, their eyes meeting. Karkarov had last seen that vibrant indigo in the eyes of a girl half his size, in Serbia. She hadn't said a word, then. When she now spoke, he could hear the preserved innocence in her tranquil tone. The hallmark of a cultivated killer. "…Thank you, Mr. Karkarov."

"Slow down, old man," Higure warned, and Karkarov was only half-sure that he was joking. Back in the day, he'd been quite defensive of his 'children'. Which reminded him…

"But where's the boy?" Curiosity overcame the possibility of angering them, in case the subject-of-interest had died since. "Your other one… flame-red hair, you know."

"It's interesting that you mention _Gatsu-kun_, Alexei," Higure said levelly, adjusting his glasses. "How deep are your contacts within the Los Angeles Police Department?"

Karkarov cocked his head to one side, thick brow creasing. "I… have some cops who look the other way, some who I can call when I need some help. Why?"

"Come, let's talk as we leave," Higure gestured to the door, turning towards it. As they left the room, he spoke over his shoulder. "To start, I need some manpower. How many of your gang clients are looking to do something a bit… anarchistic?"

Karkarov laughed, a rough, throaty sound. "Depends on what they're getting out of this. Besides enjoying themselves, they want a little incentive."

"How about decommissioned ZY-98's? Combat OS and weaponry included."

Karkarov stopped, coming to a dead halt between two corpses. "You've got to be joking. Shadow? How'd you manage that?"

Higure turned, hands in his pockets again. He stood there for a moment, a glimmer of light from the room behind casting an eerie shine against the lenses of his glasses. "Let's just call them hand-me-down Arm Slaves from an elder brother, for now. A more powerful, globally-spread elder brother. Oh, there's also a dozen German Geist-II models after we finish pitching the Shadows."

"Ah. What do you have planned, though?"

"First off, I'd like to find someone I last saw a long time ago. This is where your police friends come in… do you think you can retrieve some vital statistics about the LAPD's lovely new Arm Slave Response Unit?"

For a moment, Karkarov was taken back a week-and-a-half. Something on the news he'd watched, about those fellows… some failed hostage-situation at an embassy or a bank or something. "I'll sure as hell try."

"Wonderful. That brings me to the second objective…" The mercenary's ponytail swung slightly as he began to walk again. Karkarov could sense the girl behind him, and began to walk as well.

"…I'd like to bring a little mayhem to the shores of America."


End file.
